


On Tranquil Nights

by mysteriousgemstone (orphan_account)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Breathlessness, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fainting, Gaslighting, Gen, Graphic Description, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Mind Control, Neglect, Parasites, Seizures, Sick Lance (Voltron), Suffering, Team as Family, Weakness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/mysteriousgemstone
Summary: Lance is so tired. His heart hurts. His whole body hurts. He's going to die. Won't somebody help him before he stops breathing?~Lance contracts a space parasite and it's killing him quickly.What's just as bad is it's ability to influence his friend's minds.
Relationships: Lance (Voltron) & Everyone
Comments: 10
Kudos: 131





	On Tranquil Nights

**Author's Note:**

> another neverreallythere (my old account that i no longer associate with because i don't write certain themes anymore) reupload. please mind the major character death warning.

It all started when Lance came back from a mission complaining of heartburn. Coran gave him a little checkup and some Altean antacid that they were pretty sure wouldn't hurt him. It may not have but the pain only got worse.

It started as heartburn but turned into a monster. A deep knawing pain in the center of his chest, right where his heart was. His body ached and he shivered with claminess as if he had an earth flu.

"I'm sorry, Number 3, but I've done all of the tests this old castle can do and you seem in perfect health. Perhaps you just need some extra rest?"

"I've been resting for forever" Lance complained. "This is something bad, I know it."

Coran tried to be sympathetic but Lance could tell that he doubted him.

The blue paladin tried to go on as if there was no issue, training and sparring with the rest of the team like always. It was awful. He could hardly stand let alone fight.

When Keith landed a jab right in his chest Lance collapsed. He wailed in agony.

"Stop! It hurts! Quiznak, it hurts!"

Keith raised an eyebrow. "Seriously, Lance? Quit with the theatrics."

Shiro frowned. "Let's... let's take a break for a while."

Keith protested. "Shiro- "

"Just for a little while."

Keith shook his head and walked away. Shiro knelt beside Lance.

"Hey, are you actually hurt?"

"Yes!" Lance whined.

"Maybe you should get checked out in the infirmary. A little jab from Keith shouldn't hurt that badly."

"I already did" Lance explained while he sat up. "Coran said I'm fine."

Shiro hummed. "Well. Maybe you're just tired. How have you been sleeping?"

Lance sighed.

Shiro suddenly got distracted. He sniffed the air.

"What's that smell? Are you using a new cologne or something?"

Lance didn't know what Shiro was talking about. He just wanted to stop hurting.

~

  
Two mornings later Lance woke up feeling so much worse. He was so dizzy now on top of the pain and weakness. The room spun as he dragged himself to his mirror. What he saw almost made him collapse again.

He looked like he'd lost tens of pounds over a couple of days. It shouldn't have been possible. He looked like the life was literally being sucked out of him, and that wasn't even the scariest part. The scariest part was that his chest was _glowing._

Lance parted his robe and gasped weakly. A fist-sized spot on his emaciated chest was faintly glowing red. It was pulsating with his heartbeat. He would have ran to the infirmary if he were able. Instead he hobbled, tripping a few times and catching himself against the wall before trying again.

"Coran!" he rasped. Coran turned around and smiled, blissfully unaware.

"What can I help you with, Lance?"

Lance panted, trying to catch his breath from the trek down the hallways.

"Can't you see just from looking at me?"

Coran tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

Lance felt like he could cry. "Y-you mean you really don't see it? Maybe I was just imagining it... "

"What exactly are we talking about?"

"Everything's getting worse. Everything hurts. I can't... I can't hardly breathe. And when I looked in the mirror it looked like... I don't even know."

Coran stroked his mustache. "You look fine to me, Lance. I seem to remember you saying something about this the other quintant. Perhaps you need to stop dwelling on the idea that you're sick. How would you earthlings say... psycho yourself out of it?"

"You think I'm making it up?"

"Not in so many words. The subconscious mind is very powerful. If something is bothering you mentally you may fully convince yourself of a physical problem to mask the mental one."  
  
Lance coughed. "Okay. I'll try to forget about it. If I try hard enough I'll snap out of it, right?"

"That's the spirit!"

~

  
Lance didn't snap out of it. When the castle was under attack by a Galra ship he couldn't even make it to his lion's hangar. The team managed the situation by themselves but were furious at Lance.

"Are you still hung up on when I hit you in training or what? You couldn't even bother to do your only job?" Keith yelled.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Lance. We all have to do our part" Allura agreed.

"That was seriously messed up, dude. You kind of just threw a fit and left us hanging" Hunk said.

"Yeah. We could've had to form Voltron and we would have been in serious trouble without you" Pidge added. "I know you can't handle tech stuff like me and Hunk but the least you could do is get in your lion and fight with us."

Lance held his pounding head in his hands. His ears were ringing. He felt like he was going to vomit as his friends tore into him. He lowered himself, shaking, to sit down.

Shiro's judgmental gaze pierced through him.

"I didn't want to have to say it but you've really been slacking off, Lance. What do you have to say for yourself?"

Lance gulped. "Hurts" he whispered. 

Then he collapsed off of the couch onto the floor, out cold.

"Great. He fell asleep. All your lecture did was bore him, Shiro" Keith complained. Shiro maneuvered Lance back onto their semi-circle sofa.

"When he wakes up I'll have a good talk with him. There's something bothering him that he's not telling us and he's just... acting out like he does because he doesn't want to talk about it."

"Sounds like him" Hunk agreed. Then everyone left Lance's unconscious body alone.

~

"Come on, Lance. You're not sick. You have to tell us the truth or the entire _universe_ is going to suffer the consequences" Shiro insisted.

Lance could hardly hold his head up and face Shiro. He trembled trying to move at all. When he looked down at his hands they didn't look like his. They looked like a skeleton.

"Just hurts. M'sick. Can't breathe."

"You sound like you're breathing to me. Seriously, what's the problem? Is it Keith again? We've been over this. He can be difficult but he means well."

"I dunno" Lance slurred.

"I think you do. You just don't want to" Shiro said. He got tired of the conversation going in circles and left.

~

What little air Lance could manage to breathe smelled strange. Like flowers. Or fruit. It wasn't bad. He looked like a corpse but he didn't smell like one. The other paladins complained about his perfume when they weren't complaining about his uselessness.

~

Pidge walked with her nose in a tablet. She told the others that she was doing something important for Coran but they didn't need to know that she was on level 18 with only one life left trying not to get a game-over.

Her effort was in vain because she tripped over something and dropped the tablet right in the middle of the game. She looked down.

"Ugh, Lance. Quit goofing off. You ruined my game."

She slid his still, cold form against the wall with her foot.

~

"So, what is this called again?" Allura asked.

"A reality show" Hunk supplied. "Back on earth people film the shenanigans in their everyday lives to entertain other people. Problem is it wasn't entertaining enough so they started making stuff up and passing it off as real."

"Isn't that a little deceptive?" 

"Yeah. Doesn't stop people from watching, though."

Lance shuffled in and fell onto the couch in a heap. In a few minutes he started whimpering.

"H-hah... can't... can't breathe-!"

"Yes you can" Hunk said like he was talking to a toddler. "Not here, Lance. We're trying to watch something."

"Ah- !"

Lance choked and started shaking. He quaked violently, kicking Allura's leg.

"Lance, please!" She tutted and turned the volume up to drown out his noises. They watched the show casually while foam started to dribble out of Lance's pale lips. Eventually he stilled and wheezed shallowly, halfway fallen off of the sofa again.

~

Pidge ran down the corridor to find out what all of the commotion was. She could hear screaming clear across the castle.

It was only Lance.

"Oh, it's you. Scared me half to death! What are you up to now?"

Lance was writhing around on the floor. His white shirt was turning red, spreading out from the center of his chest. The smell of fruit and flowers was overpowering.

"You reek. Do you have to pile that stuff on?"

"Help" Lance croaked.

"You should be helping _us_ after all the time you've taken off to lay around the castle. But, I'm available. What's up?"

Blood bubbled from Lance's mouth. He let out another cry of pain and blood gushed from his chest and soaked his shirt. He sobbed, tears running down his face and turning red as well.

"What do I need to do? Do you want my help or not?" Pidge tapped her foot impatiently.

Lance couldn't answer. He was drowning in blood. It sprayed out when he screamed anew as something started bulging his shirt out where the wound was. Pidge scrunched her face up.

"What the hell?"

The bulge grew and grew until it just _snaked_ it's way out of the bottom of Lance's shirt.

It was a worm. Covered in Lance's blood and flesh.

Pidge screeched. The others came running and Shiro killed the worm with his metal arm. 

Everyone became hysterical at once. They sobbed along with Lance. Not only was the sight revolting but upon the parasite's death the sickly sweet smell abated, and with it the hypnotic hold it had over their minds.

"FUCK, fuck! We need to- CORAN! HELP!" Shiro shrieked. Pidge had fallen onto the ground as she cried. Allura, Hunk, and Keith hovered over Lance. Hunk babbled something like apologies and desperate pleas.

Coran finally came rushing down the hallway with a stretcher. Nobody had told him what was going on but somehow he knew he was going to need it and brought it with him.

~

"The damage is devastating" Coran said sadly. "The parasite was attached directly to his heart. It gnawed it's way through his ribs, sternum, and flesh. There was a tunnel left right to his must vulnerable organs. The pod will attempt to heal it but I can tell you that it won't be enough."

Shiro gripped the wall and cracked it. Hunk still hadn't stopped crying. Pidge was quiet with a thousand-yard-stare.

"I hit him in the chest" Keith's voice shook.

"I- oh, _quiznak,_ that was a seizure" Allura realized. "We were so _terrible_ to him. How long as he been ill?"

Coran wiped tears away. "At least two movements. He came to me and I drove him away. I convinced him that it was his own fault."

"And I only encouraged that" Shiro said. "Shit. I killed him!"

"We all did, honestly." Keith said.

Lance just laid in his pod trying to heal. Pidge walked up to it and put her hand on it.

"He begged me to help and I just stood there."

"We can't.... we can't feel sorry for ourselves. If Lance makes it out of the pod he'll be in awful shape and need us more than ever. We have to make it up to him and make him feel safe" Shiro said as his hand joined Pidge's. "How likely is it that he'll wake up, Coran?"

"Now that he's stabilized to a degree it's rather likely that he'll need to be removed from the healing pod and will wake. Extended stays in the pod do more harm than good. But it's very _un_ likely that he'll last long outside of the pod. The stress on his body will take it's toll."

Shiro took a deep breath. "How long could he live after the pod?"

"It's hard to know. It could be a few doboshes, it could be several movements."

Their leader nodded. 

"Then we'll make it last."

~

When they couldn't keep Lance in the healing pod any longer they woke him in the morning. 7:30 AM castle-time.

He fell into Shiro's arms. He was still very underweight and felt it.

"What's... what?" he managed.

"It's okay, Lance. You're safe. How do you feel?"

"Tired" Lance said and yawned.

"Are you in pain?"

"A little... tiny bit right here" Lance pointed to his chest. Shiro gulped.

"Okay. Coran can probably give you something for that. What do you remember?"

Lance didn't answer immediately. He blinked like he was trying to clear something from his eyes. "What did you say again?" he asked.

Shiro smiled weakly. "I asked what you remember before you went into the pod."

"Oh. Um... feeling sick and upset? I'm not sure."

Hunk was trying hard not to cry again. "Yeah, you were sick buddy. And you tried to tell us but we didn't listen. We're really, really sorry."

"So very sorry" Allura said, coming to put a hand on Lance's back. Pidge was the first to start crying.

"Don't cry" Lance said quietly, bringing up a skinny hand to wipe away the green paladin's tears. She held the hand to her face.

"You were really strong even though you were sick, Lance. You did great. We're really proud of you" Keith said. Lance attempted a little smirk.

"Thanks, mullet. Did we bond again?"

Keith swallowed the pang of guilt. "Not exactly. But... it's never too late, right?"

Lance laughed before breaking out into a cough. Coran came closer and patted his back.

"It good to see you, Number 3. You should take it easy for a while so you can recover. We need our blue paladin but more importantly we need our Lance!"

"We love you, Lance" Shiro said. Lance was expecting some kind of joke to follow but it didn't. Shiro was dead serious.

"Aww. You guys are so... so sappy. I lo-... I lo-"

Lance became limp in Shiro's arms.

"No!" everyone cried. Shiro felt Lance's pulse. It was still there as weak as it was. He was still breathing.

"He's still with us. Let's put him to bed."

~

Lance woke in his bed. It was warm and someone had given him extra pillows and blankets. He looked over and did a double take.

Everyone was there. They were hanging out on a couple of air mattresses with more pillows and blankets. The whole castle was gathered in his bedroom.

"Uh... hi?"

Everyone looked to Lance.

"Good morning!" Pidge chirped.

"Morning. But why... this?" Lance gestured.

Allura clutched her knees closer to her chest.

"I don't know how much you remember, Lance, but we were very bad to you while you were sick. We dismissed you. We never want you to feel alone like that again."

Lance smiled. 

"I don't remember much but I'm sure you guys did the best you could. And I'm not gonna say no to a space sleepover. Got any snacks?"

Hunk jumped up and dashed to the kitchen.

~

Over the course of the rest of the day the seven of them talked and laughed during movies and story-telling. Lance huddled in bed and drank his hot chocolate and when Shiro asked him about his family he started a long-winded tale of a dozen loved ones and frenzied trips to the beach and homemade dinners.

"You guys are the best" Lance said at night when everyone was starting to get sleepy. "I'll always miss my family until I see them again but it's like... you guys are my family, too. My other family. Space family. I love you guys."

Hunk sniffled while everyone told Lance that they loved him, too. "Who's the sappy one, now?" Keith joked.

Lance chuckled. "You, mullet. You're a big tough guy that's all goopy on the inside."

Keith shrugged.

When everyone couldn't keep their eyes open anymore they relaxed into their cushions and let sleep lull them under.

Lance felt safe. He closed his eyes.

His final breath was soft and quiet in the warm room.


End file.
